Red alert on blue tongue
As the world’s climate change scientists gather in Paris at the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) to drive home the message of future catastrophe in a warming world, European farmers are already “feeling the heat”.
Blue tongue is a serious disease of ruminants, spread by midges in hot countries and has previously seen the limit of its range in North Africa. With global temperatures already rising these midges have hopped across the Mediterranean to Spain and spread the blue tongue virus to European midges (Cullicoides) which in turn have now infected livestock as far north as Holland and Germany.
Posted in News and events, Research
